12. Make it easy to reap rewards

Provided by Steffan Klein and 3D3.com, Content Partner for the SME Toolkit

Your visitors want shopping to be easy. Don't give them a
hard time.

Have you ever been to a web site where you simply could not
figure out how to navigate around? And given up in disgust?

You are not the only one. And unless you make easy navigation a
priority on your web site, you risk losing your customers in much
the same way.

One of the reasons the Internet has become so popular is, that
it has become fairly easy to use. But with more and more people
connecting, you should expect less and less computer
experience.

Which is precisely what your web site design must take into
account.

While you should be able to expect a minimum in navigation
skills from your visitors - they ought to know how to click on
words and pictures to view other pages - you should not
expect them to go for a treasure hunt on your website to find the
one link word that opens your Internet shop.

A good web site design should take the guess work out of
the navigation and give the visitor the power to move around with
ease.

If you are unsure, simply use common sense. For example: When
your home page comes up, is it immediately obvious that there are
links you can follow?

If not, you may have problems. Think of the links as the map to
your web site. If you do not give your visitors the map, they will
get lost - and will probably not purchase from you.